Working Valleys

Woodland and Associated Industries

Woodland Products

Coppiced wood had a variety of uses including hurdles, beanpoles, stakes, besom brooms, charcoal, hedging stakes, fence posts, firewood, bobbin wood, clog soles and walking sticks. Thousands of swill baskets were produced and exported, and local wood supplied the brush and barrel making industries.

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Bobbins

The growth and decline of the bobbin-making industry covered a period of less than 100 years from the end of the eighteenth century. Stott Park and Penny Bridge were the largest mills in the area and Stott Park Mill, now a museum, employed some 250 men and boys and produced a quarter of a million bobbins a week.

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Charcoal

Charcoal played a vital role as a smelting agent in the production of iron, copper and lead until it was replaced by coke in the nineteenth century. The iron furnace at Backbarrow continued to use charcoal until the 1920s, and it was a major ingredient of gunpowder until the 1930s.

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Iron Smelting

The Furness Fells have long been recognised as a centre for the early iron industry. Charcoal was produced onsite where the timber was harvested. This ready supply of fuel, together with plentiful running water, made the scheme area ideal for bloomeries, smithies, forges and mills. Iron ore was brought into the area by packhorse or up the lake on boats from the mines at Dalton-in- Furness.

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Gunpowder

As in the processing of iron, charcoal was crucial in the manufacture of gunpowder and there were two gunpowder works in the area. The abundance of alder trees may have been a significant factor in the exact location of these works as it produced a good charcoal for making blasting gunpowder. Low Wood operated between 1798 – 1935 and Black Beck from 1860 – 1928.

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Tanneries

Tanning is the chemical process of converting animal skin into leather. Tannin, derived most commonly from oak bark is an essential ingredient and ‘hand’ tanneries flourished near coppiced oak woods in Cumbria from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth centuries. 21 sites have been recorded in the High Furness area, and there are extensive remains of the tannery at Rusland.

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Forestry

With industrial change and the demise of the local market for coppiced goods in the twentieth century, coppice woodland lost its value. Timber, however, was still needed for building, furniture, fencing and wagons and many of the redundant bobbin mills were converted to sawmills. Demand peaked during the first and second world wars when armament manufacture increased the demand for coal and consequently thousands of pit props were needed for the mines.

Rusland Horizons was a Landscape Partnership funded by the National Heritage Lottery Fund until July 2019. It is now being delivered by The Rusland Horizons Trust Limited. Company No. 2133450; Charity No. 519410; Registered Office: Bleacott Farm, Witherslack, Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria LA11 6RZ.